


Game Night Prep: Getting Off Hiatus

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [21]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Ruby nerds out over weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 02:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30149130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Fortress Master Ruby talks to her minion about maybe actually playing Fortresses & Froghemoths again. There are just a few small problems...Takes place around Volume 7, Chapter 5 (My BMBLB fic index).
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos
Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1482323
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Game Night Prep: Getting Off Hiatus

"Hey Jaune -" Ruby hadn't knocked, but the door to JNOR's dorm was open, even if she didn't really want to just stroll in, even if that was what an open door was _supposed_ to mean, it didn't always, and it was safer to check. So she was waiting at the door, with her head poked inside. "-can you talk?" Her friend looked up from cleaning Croceas Mor. "Well, I mean, I know you _can_ talk, duh, but like talk-talk, is now a good time _to_ talk, because sometimes I really need to concentrate on Crescent Rose and what she's doing and maybe misbehaving, and if I have to run that down it takes a lot of focus, and sometimes I can chat-" Ruby didn't remember if she had actually started that as a question or not, so she belated added a question mark to her voice. "-?"

  
"Uh, yeah, just polishing." Jaune tried to juggle sword, shield, polishing cloth, and tin of polish, and wound up saving all of it - though he did have to catch the polish tin on his boot top. He scooched over on his bed. "Have a seat. Uh, mind your head."

  
Ruby went over to his bed and sat down, not having to mind her head at all, but Jaune _was_ taller than her. She looked at her reflection in Jaune's shield - well not really her reflection, because it was more of a reddish smudge, but the white enamel didn't do the reflective properties any favors, so it was just the shine from the polish. And the rim was too tiny to get a good reflection off of, at least without getting super close. "Pretty shiny."

  
"Yup. The kids really like it, but they also want to touch, so I have to keep putting more polish on it. It's kind of a never ending fight, but, you know, with sticky fingers and metal polish. What's up?"

  
"Ugh. So much! It's like every week is... exam week!" Ruby had almost compared it to training for the Vytal Festival. She shook her head, trying to get back up to pace. "The Ace-Ops have a mission thing scheduled during our usual training time with them tomorrow, so I told everyone that we were going to be doing teamwork exercises instead. Is JNOR free?"

  
Jaune started to go for his scroll, and realized that his hands were still very full. He offered his sword to Ruby, hilt first. "Can you-?"

  
"Oh, yeah, sure!"

  
Ruby took it. It _was_ a really nice sword - even if it was still _just_ a sword. Still kind of awkward in her hands, but that was more that swords were sort of a weird alien thing to her. Not like space aliens blaaaargh, but just not really sense-making. Ruby knew _how_ they worked, and how to fight them, and if she really had to, she could probably-maybe fight with one, because at least then she'd have a literal edge instead of just a knife-hand - Yang should really get an edge installed on her new arm, so she could knife-hand Grimm - even if she was more of a boxer, she could make puns about it - but a sword wasn't a scythe, and she felt kind of lost with such a short handle. Even if it was still probably long enough for her to hold on with both hands.

  
Pulling out his scroll, Jaune checked his schedule. "What time? Uh, wait, nevermind, Ren and Nora already have a job scheduled. And Oscar has his extra 1v1 training then."

  
"But you're free?" Ruby didn't want to show her hand - her card hand - could Yang get an auto-shuffle function for her hand? That would be cool.

  
"Yeah, at the moment. Depends what's on the board tomorrow. But I don't see how having just me there helps with RWBY's team-building." Jaune gave her a face that was suspicious. Not, like, a 'mwahaha, my eeeeevil plan is coming together' face, more of a Weiss 'what _is_ your plan?' face.

  
Ruby caved. It wasn't an _important_ secret, and she had enough trouble keeping track of who knew what for those. But it was still awkward to actually _talk_ about, and she had kind of been hoping to keep it a surprise, but too late now. Well, too late as soon as she actually said something. "Wellllll..." Which was now. "It is a team-building exercise." Now. "I just don't think Ironwood would really think so." _Now_. "Okay, I haven't told the others yet, but I was hoping to play F&F." The rest of it came out in a rush. "And I could really use your help planning, and I wasn't even sure if you wanted to minion for me anymore, and I don't know what to do about P- Aaria."

  
Jaune didn't say anything, and Ruby wasn't sure if she should keep talking or be quiet and wait, and it _was_ about Pyrrha - but it was such a dumb little thing, and not important, but she didn't want to pretend that Pyrrha hadn't played F&F with them - Ruby blinked a few times, and put her non-sword holding hand on her friend's shoulder. "Jaune?"

  
He dropped his scroll onto the bed and grabbed onto her hand tightly. And still didn't say anything.

  
She squeezed his shoulder - she knew enough to do that! Even if she still wasn't sure if she should say anything. What would Yang do?

  
Talk. But that would have been Old Yang, before everything that had happened. What would New Yang do? Or Blake? Or Weiss?

  
No one had been telling them anything. And they had to decide what to tell everyone. Ruby should just tell Jaune her whole process, and let him make his own decision.

  
"So, I was in the library - Blake said they had a really good selection - and I saw that they had the F&F rulebook. And I hadn't really thought about it since, well, Beacon - well, actually, when dad and I got RWBY's stuff out of the dorm, because I found everyone's character sheets, and when I was packing for our trip to Haven, I grabbed my dice - because dice, duh - and I figured it was only a couple of sheets of paper, but they were from when RWBY was still a team, and I - well, it was dumb, but I brought them with me. And then Yang and Weiss caught up with us, and Blake showed up, but we had important stuff to do and I didn't have the rulebook _anyway_ -" Ruby paused to take a breath. Jaune was still holding onto her hand, but he was listening. Maybe it was helping?

  
"But I checked the rulebook out from the library, and I sort of had an idea for what to do, but none of us have played in, like, _forever_ at this point, so I was really hoping you could help me."

  
He nodded.

  
"Oh, um - if you're sure? Because you don't have to if it-" -hurts. But it hurt for Ruby to think about it anyway. Even dumb stuff like Pyrrha never getting to play F&F again. But ignoring the hurt wasn't going to make it go _away_.

  
Jaune took a deep breath. "I'm sure." He put on a little smile. "We'll get the players this time, right, boss?"

  
"That's the spirit, minion! This time for sure!" She squeezed his shoulder again, and let go. Stooping down, she grabbed the tin of polish from Jaune's boot-top. "Uh, where do you want these?"

  
"Um, can you hold them for just a minute? I'm almost done with the shield, and then I can shrink it down."

  
"Sure."

  
He started polishing again. After a long pause - with Ruby trying not to hold her breath during it - Jaune asked, "So... Aaria?"

  
"Yeah - well, so last time, Aaria charmed Aria, right? So the snow clone was in charge of the original."

  
He nodded.

  
"I think the easiest thing to do is just have Aaria take over Aria's job - you know, sending the players out to do things in the Fortress. And she could take the Key to the Fortress, so I don't have to worry about that."

  
"How are you going to get your players to give up loot?"

  
Curse Jaune and his keen insights into player psychology! "Ummm...."

  
"You could always say the Key takes a lot of study to master. So Aaria has to spend her time doing that, which is why she can't adventure with them anymore."

  
Ruby nodded. "Good thinking! I can make a Keymaster class or something. Steal stuff from the video game - I think there was a leveling system in there - attunements?" She made a face. "That's not it. There was a pun in there. A-tome-ments?"

  
"...Unlocks?"

  
"Oh. Duh." Shaking her head at herself, Ruby went on. "So Aaria's doing that, and the players, ummm, I think they'd mostly settled on raiding all the other HQs in the Fortress, and taking their loot. Maybe charming them too. Blake's character can do charms, she just hasn't been."

  
"Okay, so a bunch of lair raids. Easy to run, lots of fighting."

  
"Yeah! Maybe some of them want to talk, or something, so Blake can do her roleplaying stuff. And I think Weiss said something about wanting to take over the Feldauphin? I don't remember."

  
Jaune did a last pass over the front of his shield, gave it a quick inspection, and collapsed it. "You can always worry about the Feldauphin later. I can take those back now."

  
Ruby passed sword and polish over. "So, um, what do you think we should do to keep it interesting? Because if they're hitting all these leaderless lairs - I mean, it makes _sense_ , but it might stop being fun after, like, the third one."

  
"You really think we'll have time to clear out more than three lairs?"

  
Sighing, Ruby said. "Yeah, good point. And I guess if it stops being fun, we can just stop. We've got plenty of stuff to do." She tried not to start making a list in her head, because the last time she'd tried, she'd run off the end of the paper. On paper, not in her head, she hadn't run out of paper in her head, that would be silly. But that _was_ kind of why she had to tried to write everything down, because there was too much to keep in her head.

  
Jaune nodded. He probably had the same problem.

  
"So, I'm going to go get Crescent Rose and the book, and we can come up with some fun lair stuff. I don't want to make it _too_ easy for them. And you're kind of making me self-conscious of how long it's been since I did snazzing-up maintenance."

  
"I'll be here."

  
"Be right back!"


End file.
